


the girl who stole the sun

by Spokane



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Aloy does what she wants, Aloy has no shame, Conservative Carja are total prudes, Dirty Talk, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Guilt, Helis’ flowery eloquence, Huddling For Warmth, Loss of Virginity, Religious Fanaticism, Size Difference, Stranded Together, feat. rather a lot of sand, oh the angst, sexual awakening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:42:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22917163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spokane/pseuds/Spokane
Summary: The blast bomb detonates but instead of merely knocking Aloy out it triggers the collapse of the Zero Dawn facility, effectively trapping her and a certain cult leader inside. Their endeavor back to Sunfall will brush against the very edges of human endurance as they must battle between themselves and the elements.A canon divergence stemming from Deep Secrets of the Earth.
Relationships: Aloy/Helis (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 134





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (I started this NaNoWriMo but then it proceeded to grow legs and run away from me into a full-fledged novella. Mostly because Helis is far too good of a snack to go to waste.)

> _“_ I fell in love, I fell with the girl who stole the sun.”
> 
> -Ask Embla

_“You need to get out of there. What you found is too valuable, you’re too valuable.”_

Sylens tries to warn her, but she’s close. She’s _so_ close to the truth, to finding the answers that have burned within her for as long as she could remember.

Aloy turns at the soft sounds of a rope slackening and rugged breathing behind her. An Eclipse has found her. She shares a glance with the man rappelling down towards her and the shared moment of recognition between them is immediate. This isn’t just any Eclipse- it’s _Helis_ himself.

There he was; the man from the mountain, the man from her nightmares. And she knew now that it wasn’t her imagination that exaggerated his size, or the way his ghostly pale skin looked stark against his cold dead eyes. It was all real, just as she’d remembered it.

He gave her a glint of a cruel smile, before tossing a blast bomb her direction and plunging her world into darkness.

. . .

The first thing she became aware of as she came to was a hazy vision of the ground moving under her- she was being _carried._

Her head throbbed, and she seethed a groan. She felt like she’d been kicked in the head by a Charger, before remembering she had- for all intents and purposes. After the explosion, icy eyes and a massive boot were the last tortured images that haunted her before her world had gone dark again.

Which could only mean one thing. She wasn’t being rescued, she was being _captured_. Aloy snapped to her senses, realizing she was slung over the shoulder of who she could only assume to be Helis, like a sack of grain.

Animating suddenly, she aims a swift knee to his solar plexus in the hopes of releasing his hold on her. Instead he only tightens his grip. Aloy pounds against him then, flailing wildly in the hopes that she may land a hit against a critical area. In response he throws her against the harsh metal floor, lips curled back in a snarl. Fresh pain blossoms within her, compounded by her fury.

She picks herself up and lunges at him, but Helis stops her. Built like a behemoth, he grasps her shoulders and lifts her off the floor with little effort. An echo of the past flashes through her mind and she screams with fury boiling over within her, kicking at him in her blind rage. But her blows only fall against the metal greaves over his boots.

“Resistance is futile, savage child. Stop this.” He shakes her and she stops, if only to save her energy. She obviously wasn’t getting anywhere like this.

“Now,” He sets back on her feet. “You will show me the way out of these ruins.”

Aloy can’t help but bark a laugh at that. “You gotta be kidding me.”

She takes in her surroundings and recognizes that they are still in the facility, though she’s not sure of where. It is much darker than it was before and Aloy realizes with a horror that her ear is naked- _her focus is missing_. Upon further inspection her spear is also missing but she still has her bow, not that it was much use at this range. This was… Not ideal. Helis had apparently attempted to disarm her, but hadn’t finished the job.

Helis is still looking at her like he actually expects an answer.

“Where are we?” Aloy plays nonchalant while she franticly scours the floor for any sign of her focus or even basic familiarity. 

“Don’t play the fool, Nora. You know where we are.” His voice maintained the smooth cadence she’d heard over his audio recordings at the eclipse base.

“Yeah well maybe if you hadn’t given me a _concussion_ , I’d remember better.” She snaps back at him.

“You _will_ tell me the way out, child.” He commands.

“You’re wasting your time,” Aloy crosses her arms.“ I didn’t come this way. Go back the way you came.”

She realizes he hasn’t killed her yet, even though those swords on his tasset looks more than capable. He stares back at her, and now she sees the state of him. The red feathers adorning his armor are covered with dust and rubble and She struggles to piece together what’d happened since the blast.

“We cannot go back that way.”

“What?” She suddenly turns all her attention towards him. “Why not?”

“The ruins collapsed, making passage utterly impossible.”

“Wait, if it collapsed why am I still alive?” Aloy narrowed her eyes. Before realizing Helis must have _moved_ her before the collapse could crush her. “Aren’t you trying to kill me? Pulling me out of there seems kinda… counterintuitive don’t you think?”

“Rest assured, you will perish, but how the Sun has designed.”

“ _Great_.” Aloy would’ve rolled her eyes, but she was still a might dizzy.

“I realize now that I was meant to capture you, so that you may play your part as a holy sacrifice. You were meant to survive that day on the mountain, to kill my men and vex me at every turn.” He smiled at her, a cold thing full of sharp white teeth. “ _Yes_ , you are a vessel of life to be offered in the sun-ring, for those who are still faithful to the Sun to look upon as an example of the new future forged in the blood of all those that would stand against us.”

“If you’re gonna go on babbling like this all night, can you just kill me now and get it over with?” She shrugs, maintaining a cool façade.

Helis only smirks at her. “You may not yet understand the full importance of your role, child. But your lifeforce is key to our retaking of Meridian, I see that now.”

“My name’s not _child_ , it’s Aloy.” She spits at him. “If I’m such a holy sacrifice, you could least get my name right.”

“It is vital that we return to surface, so that you may be brought to justice before the Sun and Buried Shadow.”

“Yeah okay, whatever. I’m going back for my spear and my focus,” Aloy decides she’s entertained words with him long enough. “Then I’m going to kill you.”

She turns to go back down the tunnel.

“You cannot go that way. You must-” She pays him no mind and runs down the darkened tunnel using the light from his torch to see, and then and arrowhead dipped in blaze when she got too far away.

In the dim light she continued onwards until, just as Helis said, she hits a collapsed dead end. She pounded against it, threw herself at it, tried looking for any weaknesses in it. She was stuck, without her focus, without her beloved spear.

“So you see.” Aloy jumps at hearing Helis behind her, as he reminds her that things were worse than just being trapped. She’s stuck down here with _him._

“You will show me the way back to the surface.” He demands, again and he must be an idiot.

A dangerous, murderous, idiot. Though he’s not trying to kill her at the moment, Rost’s death burns in her head unbidden every second she stands in his presence and her throat aches.

“Yeah well, good luck with that bird-boy,” She snides at his garish plumage before gesturing roughly at the debris and rock. “ Because I _came_ that way.”

She slips past him and takes off down an open tunnel, in the opposite direction, into the unknown.

And so it continued on like that for a while, with Aloy quick on her feet through the seemingly endless tunnel, forced to use her arrows and blaze to light her way, certain Helis was doggedly perusing her, at a slower more enduring pace.

The tunnel was impossibly long, and eventually she reaches the end of her strength. Aloy is forced to stop to eat and rest, even though she was well aware that Helis must be following her. When she dreams she always dreams of the same things; falling and darkness.

. . .

The Nora savage was stubborn, that much was certain.

Helis had pursued her in the impossibly long tunnels for quite some time he was sure, though it was quite impossible to distinguish night from day down here. He’d long known the history of ruins under Sunfall, but the immensity of these little winding tunnels had escaped him. They weren’t on any map or schematic of the ruins. If his focus was working properly he would’ve relayed the message back to his men and had a proper map drawn up of the place.

As it was, he mentally catalogued it for later use. Given the severity of the collapse, his men likely assumed he was dead, and maybe a few of them had perished in the wreckage. He couldn’t be certain until he found his way back to the surface with his prize.

He did not know how long the tunnels under the city were or where they would lead but it mattered not- he would complete his task, he would not fail. The girl was easy to follow, even as he opted for a slower pace and waited for her to exhaust herself or her resources, whichever came first.

It was to his immense surprise to find the girl come running up behind him while he was taking a brief rest, she was completely out of breath.

“ _No_!” She screeches when she comes upon him. She was going in circles, wasting her precious energy tearing down a side tunnel that only circled back to him in the main tunnel. _Good._

“Why do you continue to fight the inevitable?” He asks her. “Why fight your destined purpose?”

“I’ve survived thus far on my hatred of you. It kept me warm in cold places, kept me fed when I ran out of food, gave me a light in the darkness.” She tells him before making a foolish grab for one of his sheathed swords.

“So you do have some faith in you then.” He grabs her wrist with no effort, his large hands fully encompassing it.

“What?” Aloy hisses in pain from his punishing grip.

“This faith in your ability to kill me once you faced me again is what drives you forward. Even now.”

“What you took from me,” She grits her teeth against the pain. I’ll never rest until my blade pierces your heart.”

“Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever known what it’s like to lose someone, child?”

“You stole him from me, like you stole the lives of so many others!” He can see the fires of hate burning in her emerald eyes, a passionate hate was more than familiar with.

“What about the men that you killed- my men, do you think they were without families?”

“They were killers.” She huffs.

“Their wives and children were not. They are innocent, even in your eyes. Surely you must see that.” And he releases her.

The girl says nothing to that and Helis watches as she looks at the blackness against her palm where his fading warpaint has rubbed off on her. She clenches it into a tight fist and tears off into the darkness once more, with not but an ignited arrow to light her way. He was feeling unusually patient in this game of chase, he could wait.

. . .

Eventually the tunnels opened up into a larger cavern that still had no end in sight. Aloy was starting to run low on rations, but at least she found a shallow underwater pool in which to refill her waterskin.

She would not be daunted, she would not be afraid, she _would_ find her way out of here- and conquer Helis. Focus or no focus, spear or no spear, Rost and Nora values had not raised her to lose her bearings so easily.

Suddenly she trips and crashes headfirst over something in the dim light, only to find that it is some sort of remains. The bones are human and still dressed in deteriorated cloth with ornate metal bracing, far too recent to be a fossil of the old ones. Aloy probes optimistically for a focus, but finds none.

“What is this place…” She wonders aloud.

“These are the remains of a soldier from the ancient reign of his radiance Iriv, the sixth of the holy and righteous Sun-Line.” She doesn’t even jump when she hears Helis’ voice behind her this time.

“Thanks for the history lesson.” Aloy deadpans without missing a beat. “What in the hell is he doing down here?”

“It is written that Iriv and his army of chosen faithful went into the Forbidden West. However, the exact path they took remains a mystery to this day. Perhaps this was a scout.”

“Yeah? Where even are we?” Aloy probes while scouring the ground, hoping she might find a weapon that is better able to slit his throat than what she currently has at her disposal.

“These caverns are unknown to me.” He tells her, and she’s honestly surprised, like admitting that he’s just as lost as she is was something easy for him.

“Why don’t you just use your focus to get out of here or something?”

“It is damaged.” The fact that he doesn’t see her as enough of a threat to answer her unguarded pisses her off.

. . .

On their 3rd night underground Aloy tries to kill him again.

She snuck to the place Helis was resting on the cold stone floor and shot him easily with an arrow. It landed its mark in his flank, and roused him how she planned. She needed him to sit up in order to gain a clear shot at his chest.

But her next arrow just split against his bracing as he quickly held his arms across his chest. She’d lost her advantage.

 _Impossible._ She honestly wasn’t sure how aspects of this man were even real. She didn’t shoot again, opting to save her valuable arrows for another chance, or maybe hunting if she ever made it out of this cave again.

“Fight me, bastard!” Aloy shouted at him, her voice echoing through the cavernous dark. The burning scraps of cloth from the unfortunate scout tied to the end of her arrow shaft provided her with the only light.

“You’re only wasting your precious energy.” Helis removed the arrow from his flank and tossed it across the stone floor without so much as a wince. She could see a trail of blood smear against the ground, so she knew he’d felt something, but made no show of it. It should’ve wounded him deeply, but he somehow seemed to shrug it off like a mere flesh wound. She’d seen Rost shoot him in the shoulder to the same effect, but almost didn’t believe her own memory- until now.

“I’m clearly more trouble for you than I’m worth, why don’t we settle this now?”

“Take some rest so we may continue back to Sunfall.” He steadfastly ignored her attempts to goad him into battle.

They continued onwards and Aloy finally stopped racing ahead, instead opting to trail behind Helis. She’d rather stalk him than have it the other way around, plus she was running low on rations and blaze and hoped if she could just catch him off-guard for just a moment she could pilfer from his supply. But he _always_ seemed to be aware of her, even when his back was to her from 10 paces away.

. . .

The winding cave eventually ended and had somehow lead them to the most impossible of places- the Daunt. Past the great canyons on the near-side of the Rustwash lay a vast desert, rumored to be even crueler than the Sandwhisper. Every Carja knew why this side of the Daunt was forbidden, that it was a place of loss, madness, and suffering.

He waits for the savage girl to reach the mouth of the cave while deciding the next course of action. Helis knew he had but 2 choices, either continue ambling around in the caves until he runs out of rations or face the perils of the Daunt. The most direct route would only take them a day and a half, but the high wall of the many canyons were insurmountable without the right equipment. They would need to go around to the unmapped outer edge before turning eastwards to the marked passage to Sunfall if they were to avoid the cliffs entirely. It would take them dangerously close to the edge of the Forbidden West.

But Helis was undeterred, his ancestors had crossed through this part of the Daunt and so would he, with neither fear nor weakness in his step. They were woefully underprepared for the journey, but his Sun has not led him wrong yet. The way forward was clear.

He tells the girl where they are and she shrugs it off recklessly. She is but an ignorant savage, oblivious to the perils of the Daunt and the West.

“We will go to the edge and then turn East towards Sunfall.” He informs her of their chosen path.

“You say that like I’m going with you.” She scoffs at him, petulant and resistant as a child.

“You _will_ go this way. Otherwise you’re only delaying the inevitable.”

“You keep saying that, but I think I’d rather try my luck back in that cave, or just go straight east from here. Wherever you’re _not_ going.” She folds her arms, but he can see the apprehension in her eyes as she takes in the barren lands surrounding her.

“No one but utter fools travel through the heart of the Daunt, you will perish.” Helis doesn’t attempt to force her, curious to see the girl’s next move.

“Don’t hold your breath.” She tells him, but ends up following him just the same.

. . .

Aloy kept her distance but keeps Helis in her sights. His pompous red plumage makes it easy, even as everything else melds together in a sea of red sands and stone.

This way she could track him, or shoot him. She liked the idea of shooting him, right through that ridiculously intricate cape of his, but refrained. Without her focus he was her only reliable way back to Sunfall, at least until she got to the edge of the Daunt. If she’d been better prepared, she might’ve tried her chances in the caves, but she needed food.

The stars could only show her so much, and they wouldn’t help her avoid the heart of the Daunt. He may yet be useful before she killed him, he knew these lands better than she. If she could only weaken him…She may be able to glean useful information about HADES and her mysterious guide Sylens from him before she makes the killing blow.

 _Keep your enemies close_ , she’d heard once. The fantasy of her revenge kept her moving through the merciless sun. She could see why the Daunt was a dangerous place. She was used to a world of trees and rivers, snow and ice. But this desert was unlike any she had previously seen, there was nothing immediately in sight, no trees, grass, water, _nothing._

She continues to trail behind Helis for hours until she catches a strange formation of rocks on the horizon. On first glace she’d thought they were a settlement, so she races towards them, surpassing Helis without a second glance. But upon reaching it she finds she is mistaken. However the venture is not a total loss, the rocks had apparently been used as some sort of shelter long ago. There are scraps of cloth, what perhaps used to be a flag and scattered bits of worn metal and leathers from armor.

Aloy pokes around, curious at what else she might find. She finds small gap where wind and what probably used to be water had worn away a cavernous hole between the rock and ducks inside where she discovers that someone had once used this as a shelter. Inside she finds better persevered cloth- sheltered from the biting sands and winds but still too worn to be of much use.

Tucked away in the corner of the tiny cave she spots some better preserved relics. A few pairs of skins sewn together, inside out with the furs lining the inside of them- apparently in a rudimentary sort of sleep sack. She pulls them out for a better look, and notes that one of them appeared in much better condition than the other. These may serve her well against the cold desert nights, she’d had enough experience to know the desert didn’t hold heat into the night and that cold here could be just as biting as the snow covered mountains of her home.

She hears Helis approach from behind but pays him no notice until he snatches the good sack from her grasp, and appraises it in the sunlight.

“My Sun is generous- look how it has blessed us child!” The misplaced grin on his face looks just left of maniacal.

“Uh, that’s mine.” His blatant disregard of any type of basic human respect infuriated her. “I had it first.” She’s fully aware she sounds like the petulant child he so often calls her, but truly doesn’t give a shit.

“These belonged to my ancestors, a savage such as yourself should consider herself fortunate to even-”

“Give it _back,_ you raving lunatic!” She feels her fists clench, a white hot anger bubbling up within her.

“Then take it from me, savage.” Helis hisses at her before she lands a glancing blow across his face. She feels her fist connect with his cheek, but Helis barely reacts. He was built like a machine after all.

Aloy recklessly tackles him then, not bothering to waste an arrow or even use her skinning dagger, such was her blinding fury. Since he was already kneeling she manages to take him down to the ground, biting, clawing and punching at anything within her grasp. His armor was rough and cutting against her skin as he grappled with her, but she ignores it. Their tussle ends abruptly when Helis manages to gain a better grip on her and slams her into the ground, so hard it knocks the breath from her lungs.

But she has obtained a small victory- in the tussle she has managed to take his focus from him. She looks into his eyes as she holds it in her fist and crushes it, not that it accomplishes much- it was already damaged beyond usefulness by rubble from the facility collapse. But it was the deliberate action that counted.

Standing over her, Helis reaches for his dagger.

“Go ahead, kill me right in front of that pathetic Sun God of yours. C’mon, damn you!” She rasps, heaving air into her lungs and unable to stop herself from goading him on.

“No. I must wait.” Instead he sheaths it with a dispassionate glance. “It is not your time to die. But you _will_ die.” And she finally sees a crack in the veneer of his patience.

“Promises, promises.” Aloy rolls her eyes and seethes as she finds her feet.

 _Fine._ She’ll take the other serviceable sack, the one that more showed it’s age in the wear and holes it displayed. It would serve her better than nothing. She’d crushed his focus and his manic religious fervor prevented him from killing her at the moment- despite how badly she can see he wants to. So at least there’s that.

 _Small victories_ , she tells herself.

. . .

Within days Aloy learns that the only good thing about the Daunt when compared to the caves was that it gave her opportunities to hunt and indulge on the occasional prickly pear. She has almost no blaze left, but she uses what little she has left to quickly roast whatever she catches. It’s mostly whatever small game is unlucky enough to cross her path with barely enough meat for a meal. The outfit she’d chosen for this part of her journey worked well against the ruthless heat of the day, but she suspects if it weren’t for her sleep sack, she’d be far too exposed at when night fell. It got colder than it had any right to be at night. Her waterskin also wouldn’t last her much longer without being refilled.

However, the longer she traveled with Helis the more she was convinced he might not be entirely human and truly be the pale inhuman monster of her nightmares.

He marched on without ever faltering in his pace, stopping only at sundown and then rising again with the sun for some unsettling form of meditation before he continued onwards. Through it all she almost never saw him drink from his water skin. The only reason she believed him to be a man was the fact that the pale skin left exposed by his armor was burning like hers was and the fact that he needed to eat- often enough for a man of his massive size.

Helis rambled on about Carja history and destiny anytime she got within earshot. Rubbing salt in her wounded pride that she was being essentially forced to follow him. She suspects even if she did break off from his path, he would catch her and force her the rest of the way. It almost makes her miss Sylens; sure he was amoral and fanatic in his quest for knowledge- but at least he wasn’t Helis. Sylens was not a bringer of death.

At some point they pass a large rock formation and Aloy spots a small crack between the stones- _an opening_. With any luck it may be another cave, and with more luck it may be able to take her away from the Daunt and her would-be executioner. The journey would be dark and arduous but blessedly possible now that she’s better stocked. She makes a note to return to it.

Once Helis beds down for the night she seizes the opportunity to steal away, backtracking through their prints in the sand and dust. It takes her hours, but she finally makes it back and immediately sees that her eyes have deceived her. The crack she’d thought she saw was merely a blemish against the rock, a dark spot that had tricked her hopeful eyes. A hopeless dead end.

_She should’ve known better._

It’s here that Aloy finally slumps to the ground; allowing feelings of despondence and loss wash over her. All her life she had been a fighter, a survivor. She wasn’t even sure why she existed or _how_ , but this was finally her end. To add insult to injury she realized she’d left her sack behind, with the assumption she’d soon be deep in the warmer underground caverns, not that it helped much but out here something was better than nothing.

But she didn’t stew in her own pity there for long, it wasn’t in her nature. Eventually Aloy picked herself back up and began the steady trudge back to the encampment, carefully avoiding a flock of Watchers on the way. On the way she realized why Helis always stopped at night, it was windy and _cold._ Bitingly so. And she was exposed in it, with not but her clothes and no way of sheltering a fire, nothing to protect her from the brunt of it.

By the time she returned tremors were working their way through her. Tonight truly felt colder than every other night on the Daunt, but her life had no room for wallowing in self-pity now.

Aloy realized that her sack wasn’t where she’d left it and searched frantically with numb fingers and clacking teeth through the rocky outcrop they had camped against for the night. It wasn’t much but at least it’d keep her warmer than she was now.

When she finally does spot it, it sets a low churn of anger in her gut. Helis must have awoken to find her missing and decided to claim it as his own for he was now using it as a double layer around his own. She wondered why he hadn’t decided to follow her if he assumed she’d run off. Perhaps he’d known there was no escape, that the desert would claim her.

 _Damn the bastard._ Aloy seethed. Killing him while he slept hadn’t worked terribly well the last time she tried it, but she’d made more arrows- and he wasn’t wearing his helmet at the moment. However, she found she was trembling too badly to even nock her bow correctly. She’d heard of the cold stealing away fingers and toes before, she wondered if that would happen to her here.

Wind ripped across the landscape and Aloy felt as if she were naked against it, like she’d been doused in chillwater, suddenly driving all thoughts of pride and dignity out of mind. She’d been cold plenty of times in her life, embraced it, was shaped by it. But actually freezing to death was an entirely different beast. It drove all coherent thought from her mind in uncontrollable tremors throughout her body.

Her mind worked practically; she needed to get warm to survive and it no longer mattered how she did it.

“Helis.”

He said nothing but his eyes snapped open and Aloy swore they were nearly bioluminescent as the faint glow of the moon radiated off them.

“Your sacrifice is going to freeze to death.” She told him, reminding him of why he needed her alive. She gave him the slightest hint of a disarming smile, like _yeah_ she totally hadn’t just contemplated killing him in his sleep.

Helis grunted and turned over on his side, putting his back to her, like she presented no threat at all, like she wasn’t even worth trading words with. Aloy was utterly perplexed, she’d given up so much of her dignity to ask him for her sack back, she almost felt tempted to freeze to death just to rob him of his victory over her. But she reminded herself that she’d wait and rob him of it when she killed him- when she drove his own dagger through his heart.

So be it. If he wasn’t going to give it back then he left her no other choice. She wiggled into the sack right behind him and it was like no heaven she’d ever known. Even stripped of his armor the man was a _furnace,_ every part of him blazing against her skin. She’d done this to force him into reacting against her, but suddenly nothing else mattered but the warmth suffusing her limbs again. The world narrowed to nothing but sensation.

Helis didn’t respond or move, like her childish invasion of personal space didn’t affect him in the slightest. It wasn’t until the morning, when he arose to pray with the rising sun as usual and left her alone in the sack did Aloy realize he’d all but invited her there.

He was trying to keep her alive, but of course he was. He really was a fanatical _idiot._

. . .

It seemed the nights were getting windier and colder, the further they traveled. The next night, as they bedded down Aloy didn’t ask for her sack back. She was _never_ going back to that thing. At her heart she was a shrewd survivalist and Helis was the warmth she needed. She could play his waiting game, let him lead her back to Sunfall where she could finally have her revenge and find her way from there.

Helis didn’t argue when Aloy slipped in next to him again, aside from a smug smile. He likely viewed this as a victory, but she couldn’t be bothered enough to care. She wondered if he’d been cold too, if he even felt normal human sensations like that- she honestly wasn’t sure. She never wanted to touch his pale milky skin or get too close, so she kept her distance in the small sack as much as humanly possible. But she felt how the heat radiated off him in waves nonetheless, like he was a human vessel of sunlight stored up from all those harsh days in the sun of Carja territory.

However, she does realize something disturbingly human about the pale monster of a man from her nightmares- he _snores._ Not unlike how Rost used to, back in the hut she’d shared with him.

. . .

On their 6th day in the Daunt’s desert the Nora girl found a warm spring in which to indulge herself and Helis happened upon her bathing by unfortunate accident.

She’d been gone from his sights for so long, he was eventually forced to search for her. He’d made it this far, he wasn’t about to lose sight of his mission now. He would deliver her to Sunfall, even if it took him a month. The Sun had sent her as a test, and in the glory of the sun ring, he would send her back to the Sun.

He’d eventually found her, soaking in the steaming pool. Her clothes were in a pile next to her, with only the steam and ripples keeping him from seeing the unspeakable parts of her.

“Come on in, water’s fine.” She smirked, mocking him and utterly uncaring and naïve of her nudity- but reveling in the way his face burned with heat as his pale skin betrayed him. He redirected his embarrassment to rage and berated her for her flagrant disregard for womanly modesty.

To which she laughed derisively at him and replied “ Oh sorry, I guess it’s all too much for my savage childish mind to comprehend.” Her lips curled around the names he called her in a twist of cruelty. “But if you insist I’ll get out,” She acted like she was making to stand.

Helis growled his irritation and immediately turned away, causing her to laugh even harder.

_Shameless savage wench._

. . .

Even machines were few and far between out here, the Daunt was likely too barren to bring in any of the major grazers. Aloy had only seen signs of a Rockbreaker in the area and a handful of Lancehorn thus far. She wondered how long it would take for them to get to the edge where the lands would be fertile once again.

Aloy asked of her sacrifice, finally bored and tiredly curious enough to ask him how exactly killing her in some giant sacred ring would help him do a damn thing. When he told her of how the Red Raids had placated the derangement to an extent, she was floored and outraged. She spit back at Heis that he was only seeing what he wanted to see, the machines were just as hostile as ever and that he was a idiot. She then brings up Sylens and shares with him what Sylens had told her, to which Helis replies to her that Sylens is a traitor not to be trusted, that his words were false against the powers of the Sun. Aloy swears that she and Sylens will prove that he is but a pawn in a much larger and more dangerous game than he could ever imagine, that the entire Eclipse was founded on a false prophecy.

And now they were arguing. Their raised voices echoed between the walls of the slot canyon they passed through. Aloy felt a tug in her side to reach for her dagger, to drive it into his chest until it reaches where his heart allegedly should be, providing he has one.

“Sun and _sand_ child, do you believe you can test my faith with your empty words and idle threats?”

“I keep telling you, you are doing the bidding of a murderous machine who wants literally _all_ of us dead. You’re being used. All that killing, all of it- was for nothing.”

“I am an instrument of prophecy.”

“Oh yeah, you’re an instrument alright.”

“You come from nothing. I have been destined for this since birth.”

“You’re wrong, I don’t come from nothing. I know that much.” Aloy hints at the double meaning behind her words, that there’s so much more to her story that she hasn’t yet uncovered. Helis had rudely interrupted that, and Sylens was being a withholding bastard. She was torn between believing Sylens, and knowing what he’d told her back in the facility was impossible. She was a human, not a machine- she couldn’t be the spawn of a machine.

Then, as if on cue, a machine finally crosses their path.

Aloy hears it before she sees it, a dislodged pebble falling from the rocky face above them forced her to look up. Then she sees it, just the faintest artificial shimmer against the blue sky above. She almost didn’t believe her eyes, but she knew it was there.

 _Perfect_. Just what she needed to run into right now; a Stalker.

Before she can even react it is upon them, knocking Helis to the ground before he has any idea what hits him. He yells his shock when the Stalker finally reveals itself and attacks him, the sight is cathartic to watch and yet it fills her with a decisive anger. Helis is _hers_ to kill, and she will not lose her prized revenge to some mindless Stalker.

Aloy realizes right away they are not the first adversaries this machine has crossed paths with. The dart gun and launcher casing look heavily damaged, which she supposes explains why it hadn’t simply shot them from its perch first.

Aloy uses its preoccupation with pinning Helis to her advantage, shooting an arrow at the exposed mechanisms between the already damaged metal plates, causing it to step off Helis and lurch towards her with terrific speed. She makes a break for the open landscape, knowing that escaping from between the walls of the tiny canyon and out into the open sands was her best bet in this fight.

She sees one of Helis’ swords impaled in its chest area, and realizes he must’ve stabbed at it while it had him pinned. It seemed to slow it down at least somewhat, giving Aloy at least enough time to nock an arrow.It takes a total of 3 arrows to slow it further, leaking precious dark fluids onto the ground.

She stops, carefully planning her next attack as she waits for it to tackle her. This would give her a clean shot into the exposed panel on its underbelly, the only way she can feasibly dispose of it without any other weapons at her disposal. It is a gamble, but one that pays off once her last shot meets her mark.

However, the machine’s attempted takedown damages her bow and knocks her roughly to the ground. The last of its servomotors whirr down in a satisfying death rattle, and it is finished just as quickly as it had come. Like so many of her other encounters in the wilds. Aloy stands, victorious as she dusts herself off.

“Wonder where this thing even came from, looks like somebody did a real number on it way before I did.” Aloy murmurs to herself while investigating the metal corpse, looking for any hints as to the story it might tell before opting to move on. She knows there could easily be more in the vicinity.

“I’ve seen these types of machines before, there’s probably more of them around, or whatever damaged this one before. Should avoid the slot canyons.” She mutters to herself before looking over her shoulder. She finds that Helis has also made it out of the canyon, but not unscathed.

He has deep slashes on his side but has started rubbing handfuls of sand into them in an effort to stop the bleeding. Aloy watches him, transfixed and disturbed at the display. His expression was tight and emotionless, and he betrayed no pain as the sand soaked up the blood and caked against his skin. The only crease in his thick brows comes when he looks back up at her, nonplussed and almost thoughtful.

She cocks a brow back at him, a cocky grin on her face as she watches him tend to himself while she is utterly untouched. “Now do you believe the rumors? I know you’ve heard them, seeing as you’ve been obsessed with catching me for months. You might’ve taken my other weapons and my focus, but it looks like I don’t need ‘em.”

Aloy allows herself a chance to gloat, beating the Stalker that almost bested Helis despite every odd against her filled her with a victorious rush of adrenaline.

“Why did you do that?” Helis’ expression darkens.

“Yeah, I’m almost surprised you didn’t kill it before me, given your reputation. Guess you’re losing your edge, so I had to step up.” She’s goads him without a second thought.

“I planned to stab my other blade into the core to better preserve the valuable heart, but you drew it off and destroyed it before I could finish. Why?” His voice is soft, but his demand for an answer hard edged.

“You were under its claws, it was going to kill you- look what it did to you.” She snaps back at him, pointing to the dried blood and sand at his side. “ But no, only _I_ get to kill you, I’ve earned that right.”

“ _Ah._ Have you?” Helis gives a cruel smile at her brutality, before it fades into his usual intimidating stoniness. “Well in any case, we should be at the edge soon. Then I will bring you to Sunfall, so that you may be offered before my Sun.”

“Providing I don’t decide to finish you off before then.” Aloy sneers.

The wounds weren’t deep enough to kill him but Aloy knew they must be painful and she was darkly glad for it. She was too close to having her revenge to have him die in some freak accident now.

. . .

A day after the attack and Helis’ wound is an angry red, like the feathers on his armor, which he now wears as if it is truly as heavy as it looks.

He drinks water more frequently, and Aloy can see why as when they stop at a spring to refill their waterskins. Sweat is dripping down his exposed abdomen and he is being blessedly quiet for once, there is no babbling on about Carja superiority or destiny. He is in bad shape but hides it well.

She knows might have a fairer chance of killing him now, or stabbing him with her own dagger, but irony was a cruel and fickle thing. If she killed him now, there was a very real chance she would freeze to death during the night without something to keep her warm. _Like him, she would also have to wait._

They trudge onwards until Helis finally collapses into the sand.

“The Buried Shadow will save me.” He slurs weakly.

“ _N_ o, listen to me- you’re going to die if you stay out here. Come with me, there’s something up ahead, like an encampment or something.”

“What difference does it make to you, whatever my fate?”

“Because if you died right now I don’t have enough heat to keep me from freezing to death, that thing didn’t give me enough blaze. Lucky for you.” She tries to help him up, but his weight almost pulls her down on top of him.

She manages to help him gain his feet, and supports him as best she can, which isn’t much considering he was at least twice her weight.

“Why are you doing this?” He mumbles into her shoulder, a far cry from the proud brute of a man she’d known him to be.

“ I _told_ you, because I’d freeze to death at night if you died right now. I want to do that myself, I have a right to do it.” She tells him flatly,

They eventually reach the large rocky outcrop on the horizon, preceding more small cliffs and channels. A ruin of the old ones lay nestled between the rocks before her, what looked to be a tiny bunker, now a hollow metal shell. The hatch had long stopped working, but was open just enough for them to fit and Aloy deemed it a good place to take shelter for now. Helis’ weight was growing heavier as he slipped further into fever.

Entering the metal shell was like entering a relic from 2 different entirely different times. It was both a ruin of the old ones, but had obvious signs of more recent tribal inhabitants. Inside there were the remnants of good sized bunk in the corner, large worn woven rugs softened what parts of the corroded metal flooring weren’t buried in sand. A roughly hewn slab of a table fashioned from the remains of some kind of machine and tatters of ancient murals littered the walls. 

Upon closer inspection the large mattress atop the ruins of an ancient bunk was still intact, a little brittle with age but Aloy could see how at one point it might’ve been a refined and well-made thing. It was stuffed full of downy hairs and held together with fine furs. Whoever had lived here last had clearly been very well taken care of.

“You might die anyways, but we’re gonna rest here.” Her voice holds no pity for him, merely practicality.


	2. Chapter 2

Helis sleeps for 2 days, and as Aloy uses his body heat and lies next to him during the bitter nights she half expects to wake up and find him cold and lifeless. He murmurs in his delirious state constantly, sometimes barking orders, sometimes begging to people who aren’t there. She won’t do him the mercy of killing him, especially since she would likely die too, at least until her skins finish drying or she collects enough sticks to build herself a fire capable of sustaining her through several nights.

Rost would forgive her for this, she knew, for keeping him alive. He wasn’t the sort of man to hold things against her, especially not for her own survival. But it disturbed her nonetheless.

Aloy uses every spare moment of her time to make arrow heads, hunt the desert bighorn sheep, collect kindling and drink all the water from the nearest spring that she desires. She scavenges the rocks to find ruins of what must have been some sort of encampment, finding curious artifacts here and there; scraps of old furs and fabrics, roughly hewn bowls and pots. The crafts she finds are so well made that they have stood well against the sun and sands for an untold age. She doesn’t see any bones and can only assume that the last inhabitants left so much behind voluntarily.

The rest seems to do Helis some good, for after a few days the delirium abates. She has done nothing besides provide him with food and water, but somehow the worst of it seems over.

He eventually begins to regain consciousness for periods of time.

. . .

Helis resolved to regain his strength and leave the accursed bed at once as it mocked him with its gentleness against his back.

He cursed his weakness as soon as he roused into consciousness, but it did him little good. Only time, food, and water would be able to banish the weakness he felt deep in his bones every time he moved. His side ached but he held onto the pain, hoping it would speed his recovery.

But finding himself at the mercy of the Nora girl was perhaps the cruelest torture the Sun or Shadow could have devised against him. Being brought so low before her felt woefully out of balance. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve it, but there must’ve been something. Perhaps his Sun had grown angry with him because he’d let sickness overtake his body.

“Was Nuala your wife?” Aloy asks him when he stirs after sleeping off a weak spell on their 5th day in the ancient bunker.

“What?” His mouth suddenly felt like it was full of sand.

“You talked in your sleep. You were asking for Nuala to help you.”

“How do you know of my wife?” He croaks, weak but indigently disbelieving. He still wasn’t sure he heard her correctly- he _couldn’t’ve_. Perhaps this was still all part of an elaborate fever dream.

“Oh, the data entry points in your tent at that old base in the Jewel. _Really_ touching stuff.” Aloy needled at him with a mockery of a frown.

“That was- I-” Helis feels his face heat, fury beginning to roil in his gut. How _dare_ she.

“Did you love her a lot? Did you tell her what you did?” She asks without missing a beat, like this was a normal conversation she could have with him. “Did you tell her about how you slaughtered women and children while she was carrying your-”

“ _Enough_!” It takes all of his energy to roar back at her. “Insolent girl. You know nothing of the ways of the world.” He will not speak of this with her, he will _not._

For a moment she almost looked regretful before her expression hardened and Helis knew exactly what she was thinking of now.

“Yeah, must be real hard to lose someone you loved. Can’t _imagine_ what that’s like.” She shoves him so forcefully he actually loses his balance and slumps weakly back against the mattress, then tosses the bowl of water she holds at him good measure and bolts from the shelter.

Helis can only lay back against the mattress, dizzy and wet, too weak to stop any of it from happening. He wonders, for perhaps the first time in his life, how he had been reduced to this moment.

. . .

A few more days and Helis is able to amble around the shelter through short bursts of strength, he uses water warmed by the cooking fire to clean his wound. It’s looking better, less red and healing cleanly. Aloy isn’t sure why he didn’t die, but she knows death and survival to be fickle and random.

He informs her that they are likely standing in the 6th Sun King’s bedchambers in the encampment, that this must have been part of their holy pilgrimage to the Forbidden West.

Aloy wrinkles her nose and tells him “Whoever thinks they deserve ‘bed chambers’ out here was obviously an idiot.”

It almost looks like he begins to smile, before he chastises her for disgracing proud Carja heritage as she expects him to. 

. . .

On their 13th day of rest her bow breaks again. The sinew she tried to string it with after the Stalker attack doesn’t hold up against her use.

“If you’re hungry, you’ll have to wait for more sinew to dry because my bow is broken again. No thanks to you, it’s the only weapon I have to hunt with.” She snarks at him, holding up the snapped bowstring.

Helis doesn’t look up from where he has his eyes closed in deep prayer on the mattress, but he takes his dagger, cuts the crystal braiding he wore from his neck and holds it out to her without a word.

Somehow, after this simple action, things begin to become different between them.

. . .

Helis awakes one morning to a horrifying reality; the Nora girl is sleeping flush against him and his body has responded to the sweet call of her warm proximity.

His manhood is pressing lewdly against her backside, achingly swollen and full in his undershorts. He hasn’t awoken hard between his legs like this in _years_ but he will not touch himself in any way. Instead he rises to subjugate himself before the sun, begging forgiveness for his weakness.

. . .

“How old _are_ you?” Aloy demands over a meal one night, Helis had apparently said something that showed his age and worldly experience.

“Many cycles older than you, girl.” He gives her a huff that could’ve almost been a laugh with a little more effort.

However, his dismissive attitude angers her. “My name’s _Aloy_. And I’m not a girl or a child. I was old enough to partake in the proving, old enough to see you murder my- Rost.”

“Was he your father?”

“May as well have been.”

“If-” He starts but she doesn’t want him to finish.

“I don’t want you to apologize. I want you to always see his face before you rest, I want him to drive all notions of peace and restfulness from your mind. I want it to haunt you forever.”

What Rost’s legacy-child didn’t realize was how much she already haunted the man seated across the floor from her.

“I wasn’t going to apologize.” He bluntly gestured at the chunks of mutton meat still in her bowl. “I was going to ask if you were going to eat that before I took it from you.”

. . .

The proximity allows them a glimpse into each other’s personal habits and humanity; a cloying and uncomfortable reality.

One morning Aloy asks him why he uses his dagger to shave the dark hairs that grew from his face, and he informs her that a beard is a dangerous tool in battle- easy for an enemy to grab onto. She then asks him why he didn’t grab Rost’s, and he tells her it was dishonorable and cowardly to resort to such methods. He tells her that Rost fought well for a savage and deserved to be fought with honor. Aloy glowers and grows silent for the rest of the day, darkly telling Helis that a butcher like him has no rights to honor, and how glad she is that he will wear Rost’s mark upon his face until he dies.

Right before they sleep, Aloy tries reasoning with him instead. She tells him that she understands why he feels he has to take back Meridian, and that she now understands that he’s been used for far longer than she’d originally thought. Jiran had used Helis’ grief for his wife to solidify their bond and further cement his loyalty. To which Helis reminds her that she was put in his path by the Sun as a test, and his faith is stronger than her empty words.

But she can tell something troubles him, her words burden him with fresh grief as he becomes broodier and more sadistic than usual. He recounts to her of all he’s done in service of the Sun and the radiant throne, and how she will be next. But she no longer sees the words as threats, but rather a screen of religiosity and cruelty for him to cloak himself in. 

. . .

The sun isn’t up yet and Aloy is caught somewhere between sleep and full awareness when she has a strange memory. She remembers tracking wild boars through the forest and coming upon them mating. She watched as they chased and bit at each other, squealing and rutting among the leaves.

Helis is snoring softly behind her, still asleep as her mind continues to wander. She wonders what he was like with his wife. Did he sleep beside her just like this? Did he mount her like the boars did? Was it violent, did they bite each other? She has never seen humans together in such a way but she can almost envision it. Helis and the delicately beautiful woman she imagined his wife to be with him hunched over her like a rutting beast. In her dream he looks up from the body of his wife like he knows she is watching them but doesn’t care. Aloy knows she should feel guilty but forgets why, the spectacle before her is too enrapturing and all-encompassing as she meets his gaze.

With that she slams to full wakefulness and shakes the remnants of the dream from her mind. While it was starkly different than any dream she’s had about him in the past, it was even more unwelcome than the nightmares. She rises to start her day early as she goes back to scavenge the Stalker kill, putting as much distance between them as possible without abandoning herself to the landscape entirely.

. . .

“I used to have nightmares about your eyes.”

“Did you?” Helis turns from where he is stretching his muscles against the floor, now almost fully healed.

“Yeah, they’re pretty cold and dead inside. Actually, that’s actually how I identified you before I knew your name, seeing as everyone seems to remember them. Well, that and your size. Not too many guys out there running around with eyes like that who also happen to be the size of a Behemoth.”

At this Helis fully sits up and catches her with another chilling dead-eyed stare. “The Carja have a tradition of bringing babes forth to meet the sun on the day of their birth. It is said that on the day of my birth I did not look away, I stared and stared until the sun had leached all color from my eyes.”

“Is that true- do they really say that?” Aloy wondered if there was any part of this man that wasn’t made to be a terrifying monster to warn children about on cold winter nights by firelight.

“No.” He told her flatly, a hint of a smirk crossing his face, less predatory than she’d ever seen it. He was _playing_ with her and somehow that was more terrifying than anything else.

. . .

This night Helis dreams of something other than victories in the sun, foes vanquished and the endless lashing sands of the Sandwhisper.

He dreams of his old home in Meridian, the familiar scent of incense assaulting his senses. Those accursed drapes.

This was his wedding night, he realized. He pulled back the silks, expecting to find Nuala waiting with her hand extended to him, he had replayed this memory many times over before. But instead Helis finds that it was the Nora girl who awaited him behind the silks, naked and smiling like she’d been expecting him. He notices that he is somehow naked too and powerless against her seductive will as he gravitates towards her. She kisses him then, like Nuala had. But she is not gentle, she is not nervous. Aloy is entirely sure of herself with a confidence that takes him aback as she makes wanton vocalizations and beckons him between her legs. He takes her then, but when she cries out it is not with pain. Her flesh yields for him, not unlike the soft skin of her throat had that day on the mountain. She is unashamedly vocal, like some savage animal- but the effect is maddening on him. It drives him into a frenzy of wanting to make her louder and take her deeper. She’s so tight around him but he pushes into her harder and harder, chasing his own pleasure as well as hers. He _never_ knew it could be like this, like sating a hunger inside him so deep he couldn’t fathom how far the chasm went until _she_ was there to fill it. He felt it overflowing into a blinding light, like staring at the sun but he never wanted to look away-

Helis awakes sharply. The Nora girl is tucked into his side, curled in on herself and thankfully still asleep. He feared he’d made some sort of telling noise in his sleep which would’ve woken her, but as he shifts positions he realizes something much _much_ worse has happened. 

He has sullied himself; his shorts wet with the sticky warmth of fresh release. 

For a young man it would have been the subject of abject humiliation but for a man of his age and experience- there are no words. The notion defies all comprehension.

He washes his undershorts in the nearby spring before she wakes. Shame, rage and humiliation swirling within himself. This girl- _this savage_ had caused his body to fruitlessly release seed. A man’s seed had but one purpose and anything outside of that was a wasteful disgrace, or so he believed. Helis was well aware he was conservative even by Carja standards but anything else was a dangerous distraction that threatened to become a false idol for weaker men to fling themselves towards.

The Buried Shadow was right, the girl was dangerous in insidious ways that Helis could’ve never previously imagined. Now that he had his strength back he needed to get back to Sunfall as soon as possible. The Daunt was working against his mind, allowing him to become weak and dangerously out of balance. He needed to press onwards immediately, before he could slide any further into debasement.

. . .

“Yeah, _no_. I’m gonna stay here for a bit, keep hunting and building up resources.” Aloy replies to Helis over her shoulder while skinning a desert ram.

“ _No_ , we must-”

“Look, if you still intend to use me as some holy vessel or whatever, you’re going be forced to carry me away from here. I’m not moving. There’s food, water and shelter. Better than I’m probably gonna get for…However long the rest of this godsforaken journey takes me.”

“Don’t tempt me.” He murmurs sourly. “It’s far easier to carry you than deal with your childish obstinance.”

“I’ll kick your wounds the entire time, unless you keep me knocked out. Or I could just kill you, if you give me another opportunity.” Aloy teases lightly, but there is a gravity to her words. Like she still means every word of them, should he try anything.

Helis sighs heavily, and Aloy half expects him to make good on his threat, or at least try.

But a cryptic part of her knows he won’t, she feels his reluctance to same way she doesn’t feel her hands tighten on her small dagger. In the way she doesn’t turn towards him and prepare for an attack that won’t come.

By the time she finishes her work and finally looks back, Helis is no longer in sight.

. . .

The day they finally decide to press onwards is the day a miraculous thing happens in the desert. Not long after leaving, the merciless sky darkens before suddenly opening up upon them.

It _rains_ , with such punishing force it was very nearly painful.

The occurrence would be extraordinary to watch, but as Aloy shivers in her wet clothes against the icy deluge and the sand and dust turns to a sloppy sort of mud under her footing, it is decidedly less extraordinary. Helis commands over the din that they must find higher ground to continue on, flashfloods were lethal.

They keep marching blindly forward until Aloy decides she’s had enough. This was idiotic; there’s no guarantee of shelter up ahead, no way of starting a fire in the deluge, and once night fell her clothes will be useless, soaked as they are. Born of the harsh wilds in Mother’s Heart, nature rarely defeated her, but she wasn’t foolish. There was no way this would end well, especially if she couldn’t see their surroundings well enough to take cover from whatever perils lay ahead.

“I’m going back.” She tells Helis in a voice that brooks no arguments and surprisingly none come. Helis may have an indominable will- but apparently he was more reasonable than she’d given him credit for, or perhaps he just knew well the danger they’d put themselves in out here.

They trudge back; cold and soaked to the bone. Nothing they both hadn’t been many other times in their vastly different lives, and yet this was somehow different.

By some miracle and Helis’ peculiar sense of direction in the chaos that was a desert storm, they make their way back. The bunker is dark but comfortably dry and Aloy can’t see much but she can hear the rustling sounds of Helis setting the sacks and blankets on the bunk and quickly stripping himself of his sodden layers and laying them to dry. His boots and greaves fall with heavy clunks against the remnants of the metal floor as he climbs into the bunk.

Aloy follows suit, stripping off her sodden clothes, even her soaked underclothes before slipping in beside him. The sensation of blissful warmth hits her immediately as she feels her bared flesh next to his, so much so that she bites her lip to stifle a breathy sigh.

 _More._ Aloy thought. She needed more. She hugs herself to him, feeling immediate relief against every point of contact between their bodies. Helis wordlessly reaches out to with an iron grip to still her frantic groping and hold her still against him.

They stayed like that until the last of the tremors faded away. Her mind usually buzzed with trying to figure out her next plan of action but now it is strangely quiet, fuzzy, and contentedly warm.

Aloy sleepily looks up and finds herself millimeters from his face, with Helis’ chilling eyes widely staring back at her, studying her like he was trying to predict her actions. Damning the past and forgoing all identity, she finds herself almost giddy with gratitude. She was so _thankful_ she almost couldn’t think straight.

She brings a hand up to his cheek, feeling how warm and human he felt, before leaning in to plant a chaste kiss against his lips. An mere imitation of the kind she’d seen folk exchange in the village, she hadn’t thought anything of it. Just a gesture to express her outpouring of relief but Aloy soon realizes its potency when she finds his lips are softer than they had any right to be.

Helis freezes like a cornered beast, but Aloy doesn’t care. In fact, she’s reveling in the thrill it’s giving her and the strange sort of power she didn’t realize she had over him.

“What _are_ -” She doesn’t let him get any farther than that before she's back on him again, pushing clumsy overeager lips against his and swallowing the rest of his words.

After a few moments of enduring Aloy’s tenacious onslaught, Helis animates and suddenly he’s moving his lips back against hers. But it’s different- it’s deeper, longer and more encompassing than ever she imagined kissing to be, until he pushes her away again.

“Stop this,” He tells her, voice dangerous and low in a way she’s not heard before. He sounds threatened, afraid, like a wild animal right before it lashes out.

“No.” Aloy finds herself grinning in her defiance. If Helis really wanted her to stop, he was more than capable of stopping her himself. But he wasn’t. Just like he almost killed her, but _didn’t_.

“Foolish child.” He chides, but doesn’t fight her when she takes his lips once again.

Helis surprises her when he dips lower to kiss her jaw and neck in light pecks; gentle and almost demure. Unlike anything she’d ever considered him capable of. They continued to kiss until her lips felt tingly and full, barely breaking for air before connecting again and again. She scoots herself as close as she can possibly be to him and his bared chest brushes up against hers. The sensation of firm muscle dragging along her nipples makes her shiver in a vastly different way than before, sparking a sensation of liquid heat suffusing her entire body. Aloy hums quietly at the contact and as if incensed by her response, Helis rolls himself over her. He kisses her with renewed fervor and blankets his warm naked bulk over her with practiced determination.

He’s done this before; she realizes- _but of course he has, he’d had a wife after all._

She feels him then, his manhood obscenely rigid and prodding against her belly, leaving trails of something wet and sticky on her skin. Aloy is struck by how warm it feels, heavy and swollen with desire for her, undoubtably the warmest part of his body. Wetness gushes between her legs in sympathy with his arousal and Aloy gasps sharply at the fierce rush of heat rocketing down her spine and pooling in her groin.

Helis startles upon hearing her and immediately pulls away. His breathing is uneven as he rolls onto his back and turns his gaze to the worn metal darkness of the bunker.

“I cannot take you.” He tells her firmly albeit rather breathlessly. However, to Aloy it sounds more like he’s speaking to himself than to her.

“Take me?” She struggles to comprehend before it dawns on her exactly what it is that they’ve been moving towards; _sex_. But instead of frightening her it only leaves an odd sort of sting. They both seem to want the same thing, but Helis is refusing her.

“We _must_ not.” Helis insists, but it feels more like he’s begging her instead.

“Why not?” Aloy demands.

“You are a sacred offering and we-" He falters, searching for words as his eloquence escapes him. “We are not joined together as husband and wife. It is a blasphemous offense against the Sun, to form a sacred bond without proper rites.”

Aloy only scoffs as she folds her arms across her chest. This man, who has slit the throats of hundreds- including her own, raided villages and destroyed families decides to firmly draw the line at taking her virginity outside the sanctity of marriage, it was almost laughable. In retrospect, it had all allegedly been in the name of religious fervor, so she supposed this made sense.

“Great idea, let’s get married as soon as we get back to Sunfall. I’m sure everyone will love that.”

“My men will respect and obey me in whatever I chose to do, that much is certain.” He steadfastly replies.

 _Oh this idiot,_ Aloy couldn’t help rolling her eyes as Helis seemed to actually be considering it as a serious possibility.

“Well then, I guess it’s gonna be a little awkward when you have me sacrificed in the Sun Ring afterwards and all that.” Aloy cuts him an apathetic glance.

Helis says nothing, merely sighs and rolls over, which Aloy supposes is his more mature way of rolling his eyes.

Chasing sleep, she absently runs her hands through the streaks of fluid that he’d leaked onto her belly and finds that feels just like what she felt between her legs. Wet, sticky, and made to ease the passage of him inside her she assumes. And she comes to a stark realization; Helis desired _her_ , at least to some extent. He could experience vulnerable emotions like reckless desire and biological arousal like any other. He couldn’t hide that from her, no matter how hard he tried.

The pride of the Shadow Carja, the Terror of the Sun, leader of the Eclipse- was just a man after all. The feeling was humanizing, powerful, and terrible all at the same time.

And Aloy wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

. . .

On their 10th night back in the bunker, everything finally comes to a head.

The sun had long set over the Daunt, their fire was reduced to glowing embers and bright moonlight poured in through the exposed cracks and worn sheepskin coverings of the decaying metal shelter. Tonight their lips were gliding together again in the bunk, an inevitability at this point. They had pushed and pulled against it for days but seemed destined to end up same place.

And again Aloy feels herself growing wetter and wetter between her naked thighs, and every time she holds them together she feels sparks of something within her. On a hunch she grips what she can of Helis’ thick wrist and guides his hand to her soaked folds. He allows the movement but stops just short of actually touching her.

“Do you feel that?” She pants against his lips. “It happened last time we did this too.”

“You cannot say things like that,” He begs her, sounding wrecked in a way she’d never known a man like him could be.

“You-” He starts but then his fingers actually touch her and he has to screw his eyes shut with a heavy breath when he feels how wet she is. Like he feels the same ache she does. She knows he is also aroused; she feels him, hard and heavy against her thigh. She keens when he presses a thick finger against something that makes her jump, that makes her spine tingle and more warmth gush from her center. Helis then moves his rough fingers a little lower and she feels him touch the innermost parts of her, causing her to moan and squirm under his touch.

He moves more fully over her again, draping his warm bulk over her and kissing her deeply like he’d done before. This time she feels the underside of his cock rub against her, soaking itself between her folds as he breaks away from her lips with a pained sounding hiss.

Aloy can hear him shudder against her, pulsing like she is with desire. He wants her, the same way she wants him and for a moment there is nothing else between them but that.

“Please, forgive me.” Helis utters and she’s not sure if he’s speaking to her or the Sun. Aloy has her own conscience to deal with, but it was being blissfully silent at the moment as each grind of his body against hers wiped all coherence from her mind.

“I will not deny you any longer. I _cannot_.” He says with a gasp, apologizing to divinities on high for what he was about to do.

Helis helps her part her legs wider, to fully slot his broad form against them and there are no words between them as he grasps himself and moves into position. 

“ _Oh_.” She breaths once Helis pushes his hips forward, just barely penetrating her. He breathes harshly against her shoulder with the tremendous effort of restraint, like he didn’t want to scare her off or hurt her and was all so ironic that Aloy very nearly laughed with it.

He pushes again, slowly feeding himself inside her. He is not a gentle man by nature and Aloy grits her teeth against the tight stretching of unfamiliar muscles. However, feeling Helis shake as he watches their joining reminds her of the strange power she seems to hold over him now and she relaxes into it. They’re both transfixed by the way his massive length slowly disappears into her body, taking all of him in a way doesn’t seem like it should be possible. It takes several shallow thrusts but once Aloy has finally taken him to the hilt she slowly looks up to meet his haunting gaze.

He looks as overwhelmed as she feels, he towers over her with his hulking mass, but looks more vulnerable than she’s ever seen him. Helis’ typically pinpoint pupils are blown wide, his lips kiss-swollen and his pale face red with a full flush. He’s even beginning to sweat, Aloy feels it beading on the back of his neck. He’s more human now than he’s ever been.

“I feel really… _Full_.” Aloy breaths out. “But don’t stop.” She tests her muscles against him, tightening and releasing.

Helis drops his head against her shoulder and can only grunt in response as she does it. It was heady, rendering such an arrogantly loquacious man utterly speechless. He eases her into a rhythm by pulling out slowly before pushing back in, and _oh- this is sex._ Aloy understands now, the movements, the heat, the frenzied chase for something out of reach. Helis starts to thrust in a steady glide, his thick brows knitted in absolute concentration.

It starts to build up in a friction inside her, the fire steadily growing as his thrusts pick up speed and depth. She bites into his neck like she saw the boars do and that must do something to him, his grunts hitch into a choked gasp against her neck and she feels something very warm and wet trickle between her legs. She registers that it must be the spill of his seed into her.

With that he collapses like a felled tree, trapping her under his immense bulk for a moment. It occurs to her then that she has finally winded The Terror of the Sun, reducing him to panting, sweaty pliancy.

“So, was that it?” Aloy can’t help a punched out smile, suddenly feeling very warm and strangely giddy. “That was fun, can we do that again?”

Helis only raises his head enough to look at her as he fights for breath. Looking vaguely horrified as he rolls over, he is careful to avoid any further contact or meet her gaze.

“I shall be punished for my transgressions, may the Sun have mercy on us.” He says fatally.

“Look, I don’t really know what’s happening here,” Aloy confessed her confusion at their peculiar situation.“ but it wasn’t a crime.”

She has long given up trying to explain how the Buried Shadow was not omnipresent without his focus. But something else eats at her as she stares up at the starlight filtering in around them.

“At least, I don’t think it was.” Aloy amends quietly to herself, unsure of how to feel; taking things that she shouldn’t even want in the first place. Perhaps it was better not to feel anything at all, lest her conscience drive all coherent thought from her mind.

. . .

In the morning she wakes to find him staring at her, and though it has been her constant companion for many days now, his piercing blue gaze still unsettled her. Or perhaps it was the fact that he’d been watching her sleep, _like a total creep_. Helis was still Helis, no matter what transpired between them.

“ _Gods, Helis_. What are you doing? Quit staring at me like that- with your creepy dead eyes.” Aloy smiles despite herself, burying her head sleepily against the lumps of pillow.

He actually smiles back at her, and it while it still looks somewhat sharp and predatory, it feels a little less cold than usual. He was usually broodier in the mornings, as if the rising of the sun reminded him of his failures. But he seemed uncharacteristically warm now, as he noses at her throat and pecks at her lips.

Then he moves his body flush against hers more fully and _ah_ she can feel his intent now, already hard and hot against her. For all his reservations about their actions last night, he seems very good at ignoring them now.

“I feel your wickedness burn within me like the heat of ten-thousand suns and yet,” He whispers to her; like a confession, like someone could hear them if he speaks too loudly. “I want to have you again.” As if his throbbing erection hasn’t already made that clear.

Aloy nods vehemently, wanting it too. She hadn’t thought she’d get another chance after last night, that he would do something dangerously drastic in his guilt. Maybe he still would.

In no time at all he is between her parted thighs again, his movements gentle and slower than before, like he knows she’s probably sore. She becomes aware that he’s missing his prayers- the Champion of the Sun is _missing_ his routine morning prayers for the sunrise because he’s having sex with her and that is enough to snap something inside of her. She keens a cry as it releases, the thing that has been winding tight from the moment Helis started his ministrations. It unfurls in waves of warmth that cause her to pulse in gentle spasms around his length.

She knows he feels it too, for he swears impiously against her lips and slams a hand against the metal wall of the shelter with such force that it vibrates the entire structure. And then he’s spending himself inside her again, the wet heat of it blooming between them as he groans above her through clenched teeth.

“What have you done to me, girl?” He whispers brokenly against her shoulder, the air between them cooling once he’d rolled over.

“Nothing. You’re too big for me to force you to do anything you didn’t already want to do.”

“I was a virtuous man of the Sun.” His definition of virtue certainly involved a lot more killing than hers.

“Debatable.” Aloy bluntly scoffs as she stands to stretch in the morning sun that filtered through the ceiling.

They both watch as his seed trickles down her thighs; further adding insult to his tattered honor.

. . .

Eventually they managed to drag themselves from the shelter, the promise of a warm soak against aching sticky muscles so tempting that Aloy was prepared to make the long trek back to the last warm spring they’d encountered.

“I can see why the Buried Shadow has deemed you so dangerous. You masterfully use your wicked guiles to spread your corrupting influence.” Helis tells her, prompting Aloy to give him even more of a show as she undresses just to spite him. “Even now, my mind and body work against me.”

“Well if I’m a test,” Aloy says, testing the warm waters with her foot. “I think you’ve already failed.”

Helis has no response to that, he strips and joins her. Together they sawm around, and Aloy allows herself a completely uninhibited view of his body. He had always fascinated her with his immensity, but now she didn’t even try to hide her unabashed staring.

“I can feel your eyes on me.” Helis sounds oddly smug from where he rests against a small boulder.

“Stand up,” Aloy demands on a whim. At this Helis opens his eyes, fixing her with a pointed gaze at her comfort with commanding him. “I want to touch you.”

He cocks a thick dark brow but acquiesces, much to her surprise.

And touch him she does, Helis holds himself steady in a perfect warrior’s pose while she explores his body. It was therapeutic, examining every naked detail of the subject of her nightmares. Realizing he’s just a man, _a very big man_ \- but only a man with the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities as any other. She starts with his chest, noting how it was almost fuller than hers, but in a much different way. Skimming her hands across endless planes of hard muscle she finds a spot that makes him twitch, teasing her fingers between his ribs. She’d have to file that away for later.

By the time she makes her way down to his hips, his manhood juts heavy and fat between his legs, encouraged by her attention and naked proximity.

“It’s so hard.” Aloy muses while she handles his cock ,giving it a squeeze to test the firmness. It was hard and silken and unlike anything she’d ever felt before.

“Yes,” Helis breathes roughly.

“I can’t believe this fit inside me.” She murmurs while staring in wonder as it throbs in her hand, the veins running through it now bulging prominently.

“Neither can I.” He says, voice slightly strangled.

She slids her hand back to handle the sac at the base of his shaft and hears his harsh intake of breath.

“So this is what we’ve always been told to aim for on a man who pushes his advantage.”

“I imagine any man who pushes his advantage with you would regret it immensely.” She can hear his smile.

“Yeah, I’d beat the meat from his bones.” And she means every word of it. That seems to have an effect on him as his cock twitches upwards at her words.

“Is it painful when I touch them? I mean, I could just rip them off and find out I guess.” She says, nonchalant to her own brutality.

“No, but they are very sensitive. It is a very good place to aim a shot against a man who is not protected in this area.”

“Glad I don’t have a weakness just hanging around like that.” She moves her hand back to his shaft. “Do you ever touch yourself down here?”

“I do not,” Helis says before amending his quick response. “ _usually_ participate in the solitary vice, it is a distraction.”

“But you _have_ done it before?” Aloy stops to look up at his face, suddenly very curious about Kestrels touching themselves in the dead of night, between battles.

“I have.”

“What did you think of the last time you did?”

At this he sighs, and goes quiet for so long Aloy suspects he may not answer.

“I thought of my wife- the last time I was intimate with my wife. I couldn’t sleep on the eve of battle so I debased myself before the sun arose to sate my longing. It was a moment of weakness.” Helis speaks in a low, confessional tone.

“Will you think of me now?” Aloy probes while moving her hand down his length.

“If I decide to be merciful and let you live a lonely existence in exile, will you lay awake and touch yourself remembering what we did?”

She is naively ignorant of the filth she utters, seeking only to sate curiosity but driving Helis mad in the process. His hips rocked forward into her hands, but her only verbal response is a rough grunt. She notices more of the clear fluid is weeping from the opening at the tip, just as surely as she feels it ebbing from between her legs.

“Show me what you do.” Aloy implores, eager to see what he did to himself in those moments of sinful weakness.

He reaches one shaking hand down to cover hers and moves it in a steady rhythm along himself. It didn’t take long before his breathing quickened and he heaved in great gasps until it hitched and fractured suddenly. His cock pulses in their hands as his seed spurts in surprising jets. It was hot and translucent in color as it splattered against their skin.

Aloy feels something winding up within her again at the sight of him, flushed and debauched as he slumped back into the shallow water heavily. It didn’t crest over her like it had before, but she could explore that later perhaps.

“Yes,” He sounds broken to the very core. “Yes, you will haunt me.”

“I can’t haunt you.” Aloy wrinkles her nose at this. “I’m not dead yet.”

“No, not yet.” Helis sighs despondently.

They begin the trek back to the bunker, arriving just in time for the last vestiges of sunlight to pass over them. Helis falls to his knees in prayer, but Aloy just watches.

Her world was constantly in flux now, with everything new she learned in direct contrast to what she previously held true. In her world there was no place for faith as Helis had, but she envied the dogmatic trust he had in the Sun at times. It gave him purpose in a way she felt lost.

She’d had a purpose, to learn about herself, protect the tribe and get revenge. But now everything looked remarkably blurry, like a dot on a horizon she’d long left behind.

. . .

The Nora girl is vocal. Shamelessly so.

Her return from a hunt this evening saw him bending her over the sun-warmed sands just outside of the bunker, taking her as an animal would in the wild. He’d managed to discard his outer armor and tasset along with most of her outer layers, but he’d lost his patience in the last moments. He’d only just managed to pull his form fitting undershorts down to his thighs before he could wait no longer, sliding into her rapturous heat with his greaves and boots still digging into his skin.

“By the Sun, listen to you.” Helis teased in her ear over the lewd sounds of his flesh slapping against hers. The beautiful and indomitable fire-haired siren beneath him could only manage to keen louder in response, her words scrambled and half formed as they spilled from her throat.

“Who’s babbling now? _Filthy, savage, girl_.” He punctuated each word with a deep thrust, his own pleasure threatening to overtake him. He’d never spoken to his wife like that during their time together, he’d never even dreamed of it. But Nuala had never tried to kill him before, so perhaps that was the key difference.

Helis mercilessly fucked her until she cried out underneath him, clenching her thighs and tightening around him like a vice until he spilled himself deep inside her impossibly warm embrace.

He’d known pleasure before; as the natural consequence of fulfilling his obligations in the marriage bed. He’d thought intimacy was supposed to be sacred, revenant and confined to a bed. But Aloy was as savage and formidable during sex as she was as an opponent. She was unabashedly loud, she bit and sucked at his skin in ways he'd never experienced with another; so hard that he could sometimes see the marks she left on him as a stark dark purple against his pale flesh. His wife had been shy where Aloy was unrestrained, made tender in ways Aloy had been made hard and a woman in ways Aloy had not yet learned. But it was all somehow different beyond a simple comparison.

One thing was certain in his mind, that this sinful transgression that transpired between them- that _kept_ transpiring between them, was unequivocally intoxicating. Nothing short of frightening in its potency. He’d finally stopped fighting it, but couldn’t bring himself any respite of conscience by justifying it.

It was the most damning form of torture ever devised and Helis felt certain that he’d pay for his sins; whether in this life or the next. Doubt ceaselessly crept into his mind with renewed purpose with each day he spent with her. Doubts of his destiny, doubts of her guilt and doubts in his faith in Buried Shadow took root, changing from one moment to the next. He felt terribly unbalanced, but his frantic prayers to the sun did nothing to relieve him.

She had him right where she wanted him, and he wondered if this was her plan all along.

. . .

Aloy discovers there are many positions in which pleasure can be obtained, some of them trickier than others merely due to the sheer enormity of Helis. They had little else to do when a violent sandstorm swept its way across the Daunt, leaving them confined to the ancient bunker for days. Helis had seen it coming a day in advance, he knew the desert like he knew his weapons.

The wind howled and beat against the metal, the entire landscape not but a dull orange haze as the entire sky darkened with billowing clouds of sand and dirt.

“I captured a pleasure slave once, and she told me of all the things she could do if we’d only agree to set her free.” Helis told her absently, from where he reclined on the floor. He seemed to avoid the bed when he could, save for sleeping and of course, taking her on it.

“Did you set her free?” Aloy asks from her position on the bed, where she’s crafting yet another arrow on the dusty furs. Dust had seeped in through the cracks in the roofing despite their best efforts.

“No.” He paused and Aloy thought that was the end of it. She knew Helis was a butcher, she didn’t need to ask what happened to the poor woman.

“She escaped.” Aloy looked over to find Helis smiling. “Smart woman. Much cleverer than she initially let on, as I assume she’d meant to. His Radiance Jiran called us back to council before anyone could locate her, he had larger priorities than one escaped prisoner.”

“Mmm,” Aloy nodded, thankful the woman had escaped Carja madness and fanaticism into what was hopefully a better life. “What things did she say?”

“I’ll show you.”

And show her he did. Aloy never imagined a mouth capable of such merciless hate could do such wonderful, dirty things between her legs, but she _liked_ it.

. . .

“After the storm passes, you have my permission to go. Just go back to your lands, whatever my forces have left of them.” Helis tells her in a hushed tone, barely audible over the howling winds as the sandstorm continued to rage.

He is but the ruined shadow of a monster now, she has ripped the teeth from his mouth and the claws from his fingers.

For Helis it is a long time coming, but the confinement has finally forced his ultimate betrayal against the Sun, against the Buried shadow and the blood legacy of His Radiance Jiran. In a creeping, terrible awareness, Helis knows he is no longer fit to kill the girl. She’d filled a gaping void he wasn’t even sure he’d had, a weakness so great it had escaped his detection but now it was too late and he was unmade.

“I never needed your permission for that.” Aloy responds bluntly and Helis can feel her words vibrate into his chest from where her face is pillowed against it.

“I knew you’d say that.” Helis answers with an amused huff. “But then, why haven’t you gone already? Once I told you of my men’s plans, I expected you to run off to save your precious tribe.”

“I would’ve never got there in time to save them, and honestly, I’m not prepared to die trying.” Aloy shrugs.

Her words shocked Helis to his core with the coldness she displayed towards the very people he’d believed she sought to protect. He realizes he has misjudged her, but certainly not for the first time. Aloy somehow always found a way to shock him at every turn.

“There’s very few Nora who even tolerate me as a part of the tribe. One of which will pass on very soon if she hasn’t been killed already. I’d return and be left with nothing, no allies that wouldn’t be shunned for speaking with me, no future, no prospects. There would be nothing for me if I went back.”

“That’s surprisingly callous of you.” He tells her. He knows that someone used to exist who believed her worth fighting for, and Helis has the scars on his cheek to prove it.

Aloy turns her face up towards him, studying him in a way that is uniquely hers. “I’ve had more time to think about it out here, and you know what- I’m done trying to win their affections and belonging. Not after I’ve seen how in a matter of weeks you’ve treated me more like a human than they did for the first few _years_ of my life. At least you take the food I offer you, even if somewhere in your heart you still want to destroy me.”

Helis has a great many thoughts on that, but doesn’t dare give a voice to any of them. They were like glowing coals simmering with heat the back of his mind but he couldn’t stand to touch them.

“I think maybe you were a good man once, before you were twisted into this. Before you believed slaughter was for the greater good, and that’s what bothers me. That’s what stays my hand the many times I want to reach out and take back what you took from me. That and the fact that I never had much to begin with, no thanks to the Nora. So _no_ , I don’t feel an overwhelming urge to run off into the desert and make more sacrifices for them. Not anymore.” He could hear the raw anger in her voice, hewn from years of harsh isolation. 

“You sound bitter, for someone so young.”

At that Aloy turns away, rolling on her side and bundling the furs around herself on the bed.

“For a man who tried to slit my throat once, I’m sure it can’t come as any surprise as to why.”

. . .

The storm eventually passes, but they still linger around the bunker.

“I miss fish.” Aloy ponders aloud, while sharpening more arrowheads and watching Helis gut her first catch since the storm, a small mule deer. He is quite skilled with a blade she has to admit, truly a butcher in every sense of the word as he works quickly and efficiently at dressing her kill.

“I find they’re far less filling than boar. It’s impossible to feed a Kestrel regiment on fish alone.”

Helis apparently values food on its ability to feed troops and somehow Aloy finds herself less than surprised. She’d thought Carja would frown upon eating unseasoned meats but apparently not all of them. It probably explains why he had yet to complain about the lack of seasoning for the many weeks they’ve been stranded out here now.

“You’ve clearly never had salmon. A big, fat, fresh salmon.” She tells him and Helis grunts noncommittally in response.

“And speaking of, you’re kind of a crap hunter, you know that?” Aloy smiles when she picks up another rough arrowhead for sharpening. “I mean, here I thought you were _the_ ultimate in battle, but I guess hunting animals isn’t quite the same as people is it?”

“It was never in my training to hunt game. The Carja raise thier own livestock and have little need to resort to such,” Helis pauses, choosing his words carefully. “primitive measures.”

“Yeah. I can see that. Guess you better stick to gathering grasses and doing the heavy lifting then.” She smirks. “Better hope I don’t get sick or anything.”

The hour is late, but they still continue in their work for as long as the fire lasts on the dried brush and grasses they’d fed it. They’re both restless, Aloy itches simply for a machine hunt and Helis yearns for salvation that he knows he will never find now.

. . .

Her favorite position, Aloy decides, is undoubtably being on top and feeding off the heady rush of power in trapping Helis’ bulk between her thighs.

Taking shelter from the unbearable wrath of the sun in the midafternoon, she rides atop him today like a charger, using his hands to brace herself as she slides up and down his length. It is still a tight squeeze and somewhat miraculous to watch him disappear inside her, but Aloy watches his face instead and the familiar way his dead eyes always seem to come back to life when she fucks him.

“Sun and stars,” Helis wheezes when she squeezes herself around him, her climax taking her by sudden storm.

“Does that feel good?” She stops to ask him.

“ _Yes_.” He grunts as she starts moving again.

Aloy stops again and Helis looks up in indignant protest.

“Say my name, Helis. You took forever to get it right, I wanna hear you say it.” She demands, feeling capricious on a sudden whim.

“I am not your pet, I will not do your bidding you wicked, _wicked_ girl.” But the glint in his icy eyes tells her otherwise.

“Say it,” She leans down to bite and suck at his throat, murmuring between kisses under his chin. “Say it.”

“Aloy.” He finally croaks.

“Good boy,” She soothes, meaning it as a merciless tease but at that Helis wrenches a hand between them to grasp himself, a move which Aloy has learned can be used to stall orgasm.

“No, don’t hold back- I want to feel it.” She tells him and he dutifully lets go, splaying his arms out while she continues her onslaught. He moves with her, rocking into her as she fucks him faster and harder until his grunts ebb into a familiar groan as he finishes.

. . .

Sharing another meal on the floor, Aloy asks Helis what he plans to do once they make their way out of the Daunt, and immediately regrets it. She only receives yet another reminder of his blind faith in a merciless god of fanatical design.

“I will live my days in exile, awaiting the inevitable.” He tells her, his voice low and full of foreboding.

“Okay great.” She barely resists the temptation to roll her eyes at his petulant brooding. “The ‘inevitable’ being?”

“It’s only a matter of time before the Buried Shadow finds out that I let you go, that I have disgraced myself and all we have fought for.”

“You mean all you’ve murdered for?” Aloy deadpans, not in the mood for Helis’ saturnine wallowing at the moment.

“I will accept my death,” Helis ignores her comment. “I have done enough. I shall gaze upon the Sun when the shadows consume my earthly form and I can only pray there is still a place for me beside my Radiant King in the afterlife, even though I know that hope to be false.”

Aloy wasn’t sure what she expected, he raved less in his fanaticism of late, but his beliefs were still deeply engrained.

“Look, I keep telling you that this ‘buried shadow’ or whatever you call it- isn’t as powerful as you think it is, but you won’t believe me. It _only_ knows what you tell it, especially now that it can’t spy on you through your focus.”

She continues to think out loud, mostly to herself, about the future of HADES. “I mean, it can’t even act for itself, not really. I’ve already crashed the Eclipse network and without you to command your men to its bidding, it’s basically stuck, I think. At least for now. It probably needs to be handled eventually, but at least now I don’t have to worry about it getting any worse. It can’t kill me directly without your men to support it. Haven’t you ever wondered why it always sends you to do its bidding, if it’s so powerful?”

“Because I am the Champion of the Sun, it is my sacred duty. And High Priest Bahavas had-”

“Bahavas is dead.” Aloy bluntly interrupts him.

“Ah. I suspected as much.”

“But Queen Nasandi and Itamen have been taken to Meridian. You should go back to Sunfall, gather your men and help those living in Shadowside, then maybe you can make yourself of further use, if you wanted to actually do something helpful for a change.”

“Won’t you have your revenge?” Helis crosses his massive arms across his wide chest.

On this Aloy considers for a moment. “I don’t want to kill you anymore. Honestly, I don’t think I’d feel better if I did and it wouldn’t fix anything. Just another waste of human life. Besides, you might still be useful.”

“Well it matters not, I cannot go back to Sunfall or Meridian.”

“Why not?” Aloy inclines her head and faces him.

“My men may always be loyal, but I do not deserve their loyalty. Not after what I’ve done. I must be excommunicated for my actions. Our people believe in the absolute power of the Sun, and I have failed them by failing in the eyes of the Sun.”

“Then just don’t tell them about me. They don’t need to know whose bed you’ve kept warm these past weeks, that’s not their business.”

“it would be a lie, to call myself deserving of their loyalty.” Helis turns to face her directly. “Have you no honor?”

“Not really.” Aloy shrugs. “It’s not very useful when you’re in my position.”

. . .

Another month slips by as they continue to etch out an existence in the Daunt as unlikely as their continued symbiosis in it.

They spar brutally, they hunt, they fuck, they unwittingly learn more personal histories and cultural differences between themselves- but most of all they just _survive_. The landscape is as merciless as ever, barren and dry while the temperature continues to swing like a pendulum between the blistering midday sun to the bone chilling nights. But every evening there is always a moment, a small window of golds, oranges and purples that belongs to them. When the punishing unrelenting rays of the sun slide into something softer as it begins to dip below the horizon and the sands have not yet shed all their warmth over to the night. This is their time, the only time they are not in a battle against one element or another. 

This twilight Aloy finds Helis seated in the sandy mounds outside the shelter, staring out at the horizon as he was wont to do at this time of evening. He’s all but pouting in the fading light as he stares in grim silence, his expression stony as ever.

Aloy decides to worm her way against his rigid bared chest to situate herself between his legs, which he spreads unconsciously to make room for her. Once the sun fully descended it would be uncomfortably cold, but for now leaning into Helis’ warm bulk was enough.

“After all I’ve done- after all I’ve sacrificed, it is I who must carry out my days in exile, waiting for death. I cannot help but wonder why. Why you were sent to divert me from my chosen path.”

 _Oh not this again_ , Aloy mentally scoffs. Helis could sulk nearly as well as he could fight, something she wasn’t exactly sure how she’d come to know so well about him.

“Yeah? Well, welcome to the exile club, been here my whole life.” Aloy can’t help the slightly cruel smile that crawls its way across her face. “But it’s kinda ironic isn’t it? Do you ever wish you’d left me alone, that you hadn’t attacked the Nora that day?”

“The Buried Shadow decreed that you must be eradicated, a system threat. I dared not oppose my Sun in Shadow.”

“Never mind what that raving machine said, look what good it did you. You’ve been forced to join the very thing you sought to destroy in exile. Now do you get it? Do you get that the Buried Shadow never cared about you or any of us?”

They sit in silence for a long while after that, watching the sun as it starts to set below the horizon, signaling the end of yet another day.

“Helis.” Aloy murmurs at length, over the din of brush crickets and faint whistling of the winds through the sands.

He answers with a grunt that she feels rumble from somewhere low in his chest.

“Have I tested your faith?”

There is a long pause before a rough breath of a “Yes”.

“Do you have any regrets?”

He swallows behind her and pauses for long enough that Aloy already knows her answer. He doesn’t have to say another word, she just knows.

“You tried to steal my faith away from me,” Helis avoids answering her directly, but his words are telling nonetheless. “ and I fear you have succeeded to a degree. Your corruption has taken ahold of my very soul and I have become compromised and debased in my heart.”

“Good.” Aloy grins contentedly, leaning back into his warmth.

“I often think about why I didn’t kill you on that Mountain, about how I was somehow incapable of it at the last second. Why you? Why has the Sun put you in my path? I was chosen, but I have come to believe _you_ have been chosen too, that is the only thing that explains your power over me.”

Aloy can only minutely shake her head with a hidden smile, disbelieving. But if Helis believed she held some sacred power that made men weak, there was little she wanted to do to convince him otherwise. In truth, Aloy knew the only power she held over him was whatever power he’d chosen to give her, and after many nights of sharing her space- he’d chosen to give her everything. He’d given himself over to her like he was starving for it, like there was a void inside him that matched her own.

“I don’t really know why I’m here, but maybe that’s it. Someone had to stop your path of destruction, and I guess maybe it was meant to be me.”

There was a reason she was here, that much she was sure of. Aloy could feel it deep within her, especially now with the entire horizon laid out before her and the pale monster of destruction and nightmares tamed at her back. Maybe the answers she sought weren’t only behind her after all.

“Maybe I can’t go back, but I can move forwards.” Aloy ponders, watching the last ray of the sun dip into the endless expanse of hazy sand and rock on the horizon.

Helis waits until the last dregs of light have faded before he answers her, the land now fully bathed in the deep blues and scattered stars of late twilight.

“Whenever you chose to leave here,” Helis pauses for so long that Aloy isn’t sure he intends to finish at all. “it would be my deepest desire to go with you.”

Aloy feels his chest move with each breath he takes as he waits for her answer, she counts the first stars to appear.

“Yeah, I guess could deal with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (that's it for the main story C: but I'm considering an epilogue bc I'm soft like that. also resolving the major plot of the game is good.)


End file.
